Obasan

by Joy Kogawa

  The letters, from the Department of Labour, British Columbia Security Commission, are in purple mimeograph ink —form letters with Father's and Uncle's names typed in the left-hand corner.

  Tadashi Nakane

  As you have no doubt already heard, the Government has ordered that people of Japanese origin are to be segregated into different camps according to the category under which they come.

  As you have expressed your desire to remain in Canada and for various reasons you are not considered suitable for Eastern Placement, you will be required to remain in New Denver.

  This order is imperative and must be obeyed.

  B.C. Security Commission.

  The letter that Uncle received is different.

  Isamu Nakane

  In accordance with the segregation programme which is now being carried out by the Government, you will he required to move to Kaslo where you will await Eastern Placement; as Slocan project has been selected as a Repatriation Camp and will house only those who have elected at the present time, or who may elect in the near future, to return to Japan.

  Transportation arrangements will be made for you and for shipment of your effects and you will be notified as to the exact time that you will leave for Rosebery to entrain for Kaslo.

  Beds, tables, stoves, stools, and all fixtures must be left in house or rooms you are now occupying. No extension of this order can be granted.

  Obasan is wrapping the pretty blue-and-white shoyu bottle shaped like a tiny teapot in a piece of the Vancouver Daily Province.

  "Where are we going?"

  No one answers me and I know it is not a time for talking. The page that Obasan is using is the one with the Tillicum Club news. Stephen and I are both members and I keep my badge—a totem-pole pin—in a round ivory box. I always read the pet market and the list of pen pals on the Tillicum Club page. Once my name was in the Happy Birthday column and I never knew how it got there. The Tillicum slogan is "Kla-How-Ya, we're all friends together."

  "Shall I pack too?"

  “In here," Obasan replies. She is wrapping the Mickey Mouse plates and the rice bowls in layers of comics, crumpling them all together—the Katzenjammer Kids with naughty Rollo and Lena Dollink, Prince Valiant and Aleta, white-eyed Little Orphan Annie with her dog Sandy and her Daddy Warbucks, who always rescues her, and Jiggs and Maggie with their pin-thin dog.

  "Kla-How-Ya," I say, as I push my box into the colourful crumples.

  Night falls and we are all working except Uncle, who has gone to town. Father is hammering boxes shut and Stephen is helping to secure them with ropes. We stop when we hear footsteps on the porch.

  "Kon-ban-wa,” a familiar voice calls. "Good evening.''

  Obasan opens the door and Nomura-obasan comes in, bowing deeply. "Iso-gashi toki ni—in a time when you are busy..." She is even thinner than before and holding a cane. Behind her is old Saito-ojisan, dressed in a suit, with Sachiko leading him.

  "Kon-ban-wa," he says, his voice rasping as he enters the room. Sachiko is out of breath as she bows lightly and sits on a box.

  "Tadashi-san, you have come well," Nomura-obasan says when she sees Father. She wipes tears from her eyes. “Such a long time."

  "A long time," Saito-ojisan repeats, nodding his head and resting a trembling hand on Father's shoulder.

  Obasan pushes the boxes aside as the minister, Nakayama-sensei, arrives carrying a black bag. The room is full of bowing and boxes are arranged in a semicircle.

  Nakayama-sensei opens his black bag and takes out a long black gown with black cloth buttons and a black cord which he ties around his waist. Over this he dons a shorter white gown.

  Obasan, Father, Uncle, Sachiko, Stephen, Nomura-obasan, and I kneel on the floor but Saito-ojisan remains standing, leaning on his stick as Sensei says loudly, "Let us pray," He begins the service, speaking rapidly, sometimes in Japanese, sometimes in English.

  "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid—”

  My head is down and I can see Sachiko's shiny shoes beside me and the soles of Sensei's boots, as he rocks up and down. When I glance up quickly for a moment, I see that everyone's eyes are closed except Sensei's. His head is tilted up as if he is addressing the ceiling.

  "Zenno no Kami yo, subete no hito no kokoro wa Shu ni araware—”

  "Amen," everyone says at the end of the prayer, and Sensei addresses them. "Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

  Nomura-obasan has trouble balancing and Obasan puts her arms around her to steady her and help her to her feet for the reading of the gospel and the recitation of the creed.

  "I believe," Sensei says in a loud voice.

  And everyone repeats in a mixture of Japanese and English, "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth—miyuru mono to miezaru mono no tsukurinushi o shinzu...."

  Saito-ojisan's false teeth clack as he says the words, his voice wheezing as he stumbles to keep up to the others.

  Nakayama-sensei plunges on as if there is no time to spare. “Almighty and ever-living God, who by Thy holy Apostle has taught us to make prayers and supplications, and to give thanks for all men. We humbly beseech Thee most mercifully to receive these our prayers which we offer unto Thy Divine Majesty; beseeching Thee to inspire continually the universal church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord: And grant, that all they that do confess Thy holy Name may agree in the truth of Thy holy word, and live in unity and godly love. We beseech Thee also to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors; and specially Thy servant George, our King: that under him we may be godly and quietly governed...."

  Stephen has been kneeling but shifts and sits on the edge of an open box. There is a muffled crack like the noise of a twig breaking under a pile of pine needles. Stephen leaps off the box and kneels beside it. Father glances over at him.

  Sensei keeps praying. "... And to all Thy people give Thy heavenly grace and specially to this congregation here present….”

  Stephen reaches into the box, removing fistfuls of crumpled newspapers. He lifts out the cameraphone carefully and sets it beside him.

  "What broke?" I whisper as he stares into the box.

  He looks up at Father as he brings out Mother's "Silver Threads Among the Gold" record. One small piece is broken off like a bite off a giant cookie.

  Father holds out his hand and Stephen passes the broken piece to him.

  "Lift up your hearts," Sensei says.

  “We lift them up unto the Lord," Sachiko and Father reply in English.

  "Let us give thanks unto our Lord God."

  "It is meet and right so to do."

  “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O Lord—"

  Father places the broken record down beside him and beckons Stephen over. He holds Stephen close as the prayers continue.

  "Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech Thee...." The words, rushing by in a whirl, sound as familiar as the wind rushing through the pines behind the house. But the meaning of the words is unknown.

  Sensei carries a small silver box in one hand and lifts out a tiny paper-thin white square which he snaps in half. He raises the broken wafer as he says "...in the same night that He was betrayed He took Bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, ‘Take, eat…’”

  Father, Obasan, and Uncle are kneeling but the others stand, their hands formed into cups in which Sensei places the paper bread. One by one the hands rise to the mouths, taking first the wafers, then the wine from the silver chalice, tiny as an egg cup.

  "Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee and be thankful."

  Nomura-obasan is tremb
ling so much that Obasan stands beside her and holds her.

  "...And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice…."

  Obasan and Sensei help Nomura-obasan to sit down as Sensei ends the prayers and begins to sing, his voice strong and deep. He flings his head back.

  Till we meet

  Till we meet

  God be with us…

  Father's eyes are closed. He joins in the singing but his rich baritone voice is weak and thin as if his throat is in pain. Saito-ojisan takes breaths between the syllables, sitting down finally on a wooden box as the others stand to sing.

  Ma-ta o-o-o

  Hi-ma de

  Ma-ta o-o

  Hi-ma de

  Kami no-o-o

  Ma-mo-ri

  Nagami o

  Hanare za-re

  It is as if Saito-ojisan is singing alone to his own rhythm. As we come to the end he is still singing, his voice straining.

  "Once more," Sensei says. "Utai masho. Let us sing again."

  The voices fill the tiny room and I take in the sound as if the music could shut out the night terrors.

  When the song ends for the third time, Obasan takes Saito-ojisan's bony hands in her own. "Mata itsuka. Again someday. Let us meet."

  Nomura-obasan draws a handkerchief from her sleeve and holds it over her trembling face. Nakayama-sensei puts his hand on her back and says, “In a time like this, let us trust in God even more. To trust when life is easy is no trust."

  "There is a time for crying," Saito-ojisan whispers, his voice quavering. "Itsuka, someday, the time for laughter will come."

  “Assuredly, that must be so," Sensei says. He gathers his silver box and chalice and flasks of water and wine and puts them into a small case and into his bag. "Wherever you go, God willing, I will visit you. We will not abandon one another. We will meet again," he says as he removes his gowns.

  He puts a hand on Stephen's head. "Be a great musician like your father," he says. He turns to me. "Shikkari—be sturdy." He bows to everyone and is gone, trotting rapidly down the path to the next waiting group.

  twenty -six

  Bowing deeply one by one, Sachiko and her grandfather leave, Nomura-obasan leaves, disappearing forever into the night and the dispersal.

  From time to time over the days and weeks of our departures I hear the wavering sound of music from a loudspeaker in town, reaching us in wails and echoes, as Guy Lombardo sings over Slocan:

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot

  And never brought to mind….

  Then one day suddenly Father is not here again and I do not know what is happening.

  On certain days when I go to town I see the trucks. They are full of children, mothers, fathers, boxes, old people, suitcases, furoshiki—all the people standing because there is no room to sit. The day we leave, the train station is a forest of legs and bodies waiting as the train jerks and inches back and forth, its black hulk hissing with steam and smelling of black oil drops that drip onto the cinders.

  We are all standing still, as thick and full of rushing as trees in a forest storm, waiting for the giant woodsman with his mighty axe. He is in my grade-two reader, that giant woodcutter, standing leaning on his giant axe after felling the giant tree.

  If all the seas were one sea,

  What a great sea that would be!

  And if all the trees were one tree

  What a great tree that would be!

  And if all the axes were one axe,

  What a great axe that would be!..

  And if all the men were one man….

  What would it be like if all the people at the station could be rolled up into one huge person? The trees would be as tiny as toothpicks. He could cross the mountain in one leap. He could wade through Slocan Lake and it would be like stepping in a puddle.

  The missionaries are moving through the crowd, saying goodbyes. One of them bends down, saying, "Goodbye, Naomi. Goodbye, Stephen."

  "Goodbye."

  "Will you miss us?"

  "Nope," I say with a toss of my head.

  "You won't miss us even a little bit?"

  "Nope." I am uncomfortable with all this talking.

  She puts her arms out to hug me and I stiffen and draw back, bumping into Kenji`s big brother, Mas. Mas stares at me blankly as I jostle him. He is carrying a black cloth bag over one shoulder and swings it to the other side. Where's Kenji? I wonder.

  There is a loud clanging of the train bell and like a long caterpillar those who are leaving move forward onto the train, step by step, no turning back, no stepping out of line, Stephen behind Mas, Uncle behind me. The crowd stands aside, waving steadily, bowing, touching arms here and there, and then they are out of view and I’m clambering up the train steps again as I did three years ago.

  We sit in two seats facing each other once more, exactly like the last time. Where is Father? Why is Kenji not with Mas? Where are we going? Will it be to a city? Remember my doll? Remember Vancouver? The escalators? Electric lights? Streetcars? Will we go home again ever?

  The train shudders out of the station. I press my face against the glass as we move away from Slocan Lake and Rough Lock Bill's cabin, past the sea of upturned faces and waving hands and along the edge of the town, then into the trees and up along the thin ridges into a tunnel and we are on our way again. Clackity clack, clackity clack, clackity clack, so long, Slocan.

  twenty-seven

  In Aunt Emily's package, the papers are piled as neatly as the thin white wafers in Sensei's silver box—symbols of communion, the materials of communication, white paper bread for the mind's meal.

  We were the unwilling communicants receiving and consuming a less than holy nourishment, our eyes, cups filling with the bitter wine of a loveless communion.

  Along with the letters from the government, there are copies of telegrams and the copy of the memorandum for the House of Commons and Senate prepared by the Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians.

  Do I really want to read these?

  This is Thursday. It's almost four o'clock. Stephen and Aunt Emily will be here soon. Obasan is asleep. Nakayama-sensei should be coming by at some point today. I phoned him the news earlier and he said he would drive up from Coaldale. His voice sounded remote on the phone, the steady "nh nh" sound indicating he heard what I was saying, but he had no words of comfort to offer. After a pause, he said, "Such a good man," in a tired voice. That was all he said. Nakayama-sensei is old now too and sounded almost as weary as Obasan, who can, it seems, barely keep awake. One minute she is sitting in front of me paring an apple, and the next minute her head is back on the sofa and her mouth is open in sleep, like a newborn baby. She is tired today because of Uncle's death and because so many others are dying or have already died and the time is approaching for her.

  And I am tired, I suppose, because I want to get away from all this. From the past and all these papers, from the present, from the memories, from the deaths, from Aunt Emily and her heap of words. I want to break loose from the heavy identity, the evidence of rejection, the unexpressed passion, the misunderstood politeness. I am tired of living between deaths and funerals, weighted with decorum, unable to shout or sing or dance, unable to scream or swear, unable to laugh, unable to breathe out loud.

  (Keep your eyes down. When you are in the city, do not look into anyone's face. That way they may not see you. That way you offend less.)

  I am tired, tired like Obasan, and what will she do now what will she do?

  I can escape from the question into the papers, I can escape from the papers into the question, back and forth like a hamster in a tube in a cage that hasn't been cleaned for months.

  What does it all matter in the end?

  "It matters to get the facts straight," Aunt Emily said last May. It was late, but she was still so full of the California conference that she was unable to sleep. The tone of her voice had softened since earlier in
the evening and she sounded neither bitter nor angry. "Reconciliation can't begin without mutual recognition of facts," she said.

  "Facts?"

  "Yes, facts. What's right is right. What's wrong is wrong. Health starts somewhere."

  The fact is that, in 1945, the gardens in Slocan were spectacular. In the spring there had been new loads of manure and fertilizer and the plants were ripening for harvest when the orders came.

  The fact is that families already fractured and separated were permanently destroyed. The choice to go east of the Rockies or to Japan was presented without time for consultation with separated parents and children. Failure to choose was labeled non-cooperation. Throughout the country, the pressure was on.

  The Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, Norman Robertson, said, "Canada has done rather a poor job with the whole matter of the Japanese ever since they have been in Canada, therefore it might be better for them in their own interest to go to Japan." The Vancouver Daily Province reported, “Everything is being done to give the Japanese an opportunity to return to their homeland." Everything was done, Aunt Emily said, officially, unofficially, at all levels, and the message to disappear worked its way deep into the Nisei heart and into the bone marrow.

  She showed me a circular sent from T. B. Pickersgill of the Department of Labour to every Japanese-Canadian person over the age of sixteen, telling us of "various forms of assistance provided by the Government of Canada”.

  "Such a generous country," Aunt Emily said as she read from the form, “‘…This assured assistance from the government as outlined…will mean, to many who desire repatriation, relief from unnecessary anxiety and it will allow them to plan for their future and that of their children, along economic, social, and cultural lines which they fear might be denied them were they to remain in Canada.'